For The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
During the busiest times, an average of 500 trucks a day go in and out of the ADM facility in Cedar Rapids, plant manager Brian Mullins says. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)
CEDAR RAPIDS — Brian Mullins slowed his pickup truck and waved to allow a hauler to go ahead.
Trucks will line up to have their corn graded. Then they’ll circle around to a scale for weighing.
The drivers then are told by sign where to take their load for drop off.
Mullins explained the strategic traffic flow this past, crisp Tuesday afternoon as he gave an exterior tour of Archer Daniels Midland’s largest corn-grinding facility — 450 acres all told.
During its busiest times, an average of upward of 500 trucks a day go in and out of the southwest Cedar Rapids facility, located just south of Route 30 and west of where the highway meets Interstate 380.
How much time does it take? Mullins estimated it’s about 200 hours from unloading to moving product “back out the door.“
And then there are the six and a half miles of rail that weave though the massive site. In fact, most of the product that departs here goes by train, Mullins added.
It’s then on its way to out to the Mississippi River, to the Midwest and Southwest, to cattle feed lots and other customers.
It’s a lot of traffic.
The heavy-volume facility, with its tall towers and heavy cranes, operates a wet mill and a dry mill, as well as a co-generation plant that during the 2008 flood — even though the ADM facility itself was closed — sent power back to Alliant Energy, Mullins said. (The site was down after the August 2020 derecho, too, but for only four days.)
That co-gen station does double duty — its steam is pumped through big overhead pipes, snake-like, along the site to help dry the corn for the wet mill operation, Mullins explained.
Signs along the road mark orange, red, green and blue routes — to aid emergency personnel in case they need to make their way through the sprawling complex.
Back in the main building, Mullins said he “grew up around farms” in northwest Iowa. He developed a “passion for science” and became an engineer through Iowa State University’s agriculture and biosystems engineering program.
He’s been with ADM for 19 years and has been manager of the complex for the past three years.
The facility employs 450 workers — Mullins and the company refer to them as “colleagues.” There also are between 200 and 300 skilled-trade contractors on site.
Their output — starches and sweeteners, animal feed and ethanol — goes to a range of well-known companies, including General Mills, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Hershey and MillerCoors.
This ADM site has been producing ethanol since 1980, Mullins said.
“If you eat it, drink it or fuel it, it comes from ADM,” added Christopher Riley, ADM director of state government relations. Riley is based in Decatur, Ill., and he was in Cedar Rapids for the tour.
Riley has been with ADM for 27 years, he said.
ADM Day
ADM itself marked its 50th year in Cedar Rapids in 2022 — Mayor Tiffany O’Donnell declared Sept. 30 as ADM Day — and its 120th year since its founding.
Headquartered in Chicago, the multinational food processor now boasts 120 ingredient manufacturing facilities and some 40,000 employees across 170 counties.
In the beginning, Riley and Mullins explained, local investors developed a wet corn mill in southwest Cedar Rapids in the early 1970s, then sold it to ADM in 1974.
Afterward came a series of expansions for the site, with the Cedar Rapids facility alone going from processing some 20,000 bushels of corn a day to approximately 800,000 bushels today.
The most recent big expansion at the Cedar Rapids site was in 2010, for its dry mill.
Over time, this ADM facility has developed joint ventures with some of its neighbors, such as Saf-Pro Ingredients and Red Star Yeast, both brands of French yeast manufacturer Lesaffre.
ADM in Cedar Rapids also maintains ADM Cares, which has contributed $25,000 to Feed Iowa First, Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, Mission of Hope, and Boys and Girls Club of Cedar Rapids each, Riley said.
And then there’s the garden on site, tended by volunteer employees, which has produced up to 1,500 pounds of cucumbers, chili peppers and other vegetables for Feed Iowa First.
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